Dr Sharon Leahy sl65@st-andrews.ac.uk The right to rent – generating precarity & discrimination through Fantasy Citizenship Dr Sharon Leahy sl65@st-andrews.ac.uk

May’s journey to No.10 “create a really hostile environment for illegal migrants" “most people will say it can't be fair for people who have no right to be here in the UK to continue to exist as everybody else does with bank accounts, with driving licenses and with access to rented accommodation. We are going to be changing that because we don't think that is fair"

Bodies “become sites of encoded boundaries” (Amoore 2006, 347-8) a ‘narrative of undeservingness’ Anderson asserts that ‘fantasy citizenship makes migrants exceptions and discourages a politics and an analysis that finds commonalities between migrants and differentiated citizens, even as it makes this analysis more urgent’ (2015a, 187) Dhaliwal and Forkert argue that the rights to work and rent are pseudo rights, which ‘have been invented as if these actually meant something for national citizens (rather than being differentiated and contingent), in order to strengthen distinctions between those who hold national citizenship and those who do not’ (2015, 51).

Confusion, Consternation, & the Constitution of Precarity ‘I think the uncertainty is how the courts will interpret whatever Westminster does, whatever the UK government does around this and the Home Office. I think there is a lot of uncertainty about how on earth they are going to progress that. I don’t think they are making much progress on it at the moment and I think they are unlikely to make much progress in the next six months to year, just because there is quite enough going on’ (Umbrella Organisation 2).

Increasing Criminality & Risk ‘if people can’t get it by legitimate means, then people are likely to get it by illegitimate means. There are landlords throughout the UK who flout legislation on overcrowding, on repairs. Those landlords will continue to operate and we can see how legislation like this would stop landlords like that operating who may well already be operating illegally anyway by vastly overcrowding their properties, by arbitrarily bringing people in, evicting people, doing all the things that landlords should do’ (Charity 3).

Taking the “no risk” option ‘the private landlord reps were quite upfront about it. They said look, if you are a private landlords with one property and you have got the option of someone who looks or sounds foreign, who might be a risk, or someone who looks and sounds and has a name which is obviously indigenous you are going to take the no risk option. Why put yourself through it?.. It is just about the path of least resistance, the path of least hassle’ (Charity 2).

State again offloading responsibility ‘you know, we are struggling. We are being presented with unfamiliar documents …Other people are just like this is more hassle than it’s worth and you will probably use an excuse. Oh well sorry, I have got two people interested and they were here first’ (Housing Association 1). Butler (2012, 148) argues that ‘every political effort to manage populations involves a tactical distribution of precarity, …one that depends on dominant norms regarding whose life is grievable and worth protecting and whose life is ungrievable’.

Immigration Law superseding Housing Law ‘I am still confused to how this is going to work in practice, because housing policy and legislation is a matter for the Scottish Government. We have just passed a Private Tenancies Act which changes the tenancy rights in the Private Rented Sector and it makes it absolute clear that there are only specific grounds on which somebody can be evicted, and it doesn’t include somebody not having “right to rent” in the UK legislation. So I don’t know how you could have a legal eviction of somebody who doesn’t have the right to rent under Scottish Housing Law’ (Charity 2).

Does all of that just go away? ‘You see the 40 day notice, the fact that you have to go to a Sheriff court to get a decree otherwise it is an illegal eviction and you have to get Sheriff officers to serve that. These three things, which underpin the rights of tenants in Scotland, have existed since the Housing Act of 1550… All of that just goes away, all of that is nearly 500 years of tenancy rights imbedded within these acts in Scotland are worthless because what this is saying is you do not need to go to court you just evict them if you do not think that they have leave to remain. Evict’ (Housing Association 2).

Lack of Documentation ‘That was one of the issues I raised and some of our responses was that there is an irony in this, which is that actually, for example, homeless people, a homeless person from another EU country is far more likely to have an ID card because you are legally obliged to have one in most countries of the EU than an indigenous UK homeless person. So it might actually be excluding indigenous UK homeless people from access to accommodation and favouring other EU migrants. Now that is not the intention of the legislation, but it is one of these perverse outcomes’ (Charity 2).

We are all becoming border agents ‘we become immigration officials and that is not why people work in housing. Absolutely not… I mean, my previous understanding that we would have to report things to the Home Office that made me uncomfortable in itself. But when it’s a duty and it’s enforced on you and there’s legal penalties for not doing so, then finally you accept that I suppose I disagree with it, but as a landlord overall, as an organisation we have to comply with it. But I definitely do not think it’s our role to be implementing the Home Office’ (Housing Association 1).

Thank you Questions?